Writing 2 - Sunday, November 3, 13 And so begins week two in our renewed adventure in writing, today’s topic will be a personal favourite: the Toronto Maple Leafs and their legions and legions of long suffering, deservedly so I might add, fans. I watched most of last night’s game between the Leafs, leaders in the Eastern Conference and the Vancouver Canucks, near the top in the Western Conference. It was a game that clearly demonstrated, I think, that showed the problem that the Leafs continue to not address – a decided disinterest in playing defensive hockey of any kind. I really thought that their new coach, Randy Carlyle, was really going to turn this team around, a team that has a long and painful history of thinking that hockey, Leaf style, involves offence only. There was beaucoup evidence last night that some habits die hard. Did anyone even notice Nazem Kadri out there? What an absolute waste of talent. Obviously this young man thinks, as do too many Leafs, that the game is played only when your team has the puck. Are you listening, Phil Kessel? Toronto was so inept last night that there were times, especially during the latter stages, that the Leafs were a man short all the time; actually they were a man short 11 times; three of those penalties were for boarding – how butch is that? That the Leafs actually quit halfway through the third period was painfully obvious. Carlyle will have to address that attitude too. Alas when the Leafs return home all will be forgiven because, you know, they’re the Leafs. And thus will continue that special relationship this team has with its many fiercely faithful and blindly loyal fan base. Beating the hapless New Jersey Devils this Friday will make all thing bright and shiny again for all leaflets everywhere. To be a Leaf fan means having a very short and faulty memory. I can count on one hand the number of Leaf fans of my personal acquaintance who actually note this rather important chink in the Maple Leaf armour – their complete indifference to the other side of the puck; the side where you don’t have the puck and you have to try your damndest to get it back. Until Carlyle instills this basic tenet into the minds and hearts of his charges there will be another early exit from the playoffs in the spring. Ah, the spring, when the NHL second season, the one that counts, begins. Perhaps by this time, Toronto’s latest heart throb – David Clarkson – will, can prove that he is worth all that money showered on a third line centre who to date has done next to nothing except for his 10-game suspension for leaving the bench during a brawl in the pre-season. Mind you he is quite the chirping and posturing yahoo during scrums after the whistle – every team needs one of these guys, amirite? Let’s look at a Leaf positive thus far – goaltending. I’m especially impressed by James Reimer who tended to get lit up quite often last year, especially by long shots that could/should be stopped. He was actually brilliant in Vancouver. Apparently the new goalie has also been excellent and this, yet again, brings us back to a certain reliance that virtually all Leaf teams since the Doug Gilmour days have been wholly dependent on – superb, fantastic really, goaltending. Felix Potvin, Curtis Joseph, especially Curtis Joseph, and finally Ed Balfour did nothing but yeoman service for the hapless and hopeless Leaf attempts at defensive play. It could be said, I think, that if the Leafs did not have these three stellar goaltenders, they never would have made the playoffs in any of the years they did in the nineties. How many years did the Leafs have the magnificent Mats Sundin and stellar goaltending and absolutely nothing else? I’m certain that Randy Carlyle was well aware of what he was inheriting from the execrable Ron Wilson, perhaps the worst coach the Leafs ever had. And there has been some very important improvements in the Leafs play since Carlyle took over, but the game against Vancouver on Saturday really showed how thin the veneer the Leafs’ commitment to defensive play really is. When the Leafs collapse they do so in spectacular fashion – see last year’s debacle in the playoffs against the Bruins for further evidence of how the complete and utter breakdown of your defensive posture invites disaster. In conclusion, for the Leafs to really buy into the Randy Carlyle regime, Phil Kessel, Nazem Kadri, and a few other offensive wonders have to demonstrate now that they can be counted on to make themselves useful in their own end. They can begin by learning how to fore check with enthusiasm and panache. There, I’ve completed my Leaf column for the first part of the year. Perhaps I’ll write a column on their first meeting with Detroit sometime in December.